CHAPTER TWENTY
‡
Michael sat in a rocker on the terrace, smoking a cigar and sipping a Scotch under the light of the comet that hurtled imperceptibly toward its rendezvous with the Big Dipper. It must be after midnight now. This was the last day of September, and though the day had been warm, the night had the chill of the ocean about it. Tammy’s cries of ecstasy drifted up from the hayloft periodically. But no smoke. His advice must have done the trick. He’d kept watch, but they seemed to have made it through at this point. Clever of her to find a place for privacy. That was a scarce commodity these days. She and the kid were claiming their Destiny tonight. Piss-poor timing, with disaster looming, but you couldn’t choose the time. He knew that as well as anyone.
And he knew disaster was imminent. Morgan had three Talismans increasing her power and those of her band of criminals and misfits. There was no way the family could stop her when they couldn’t find her, and even if they found her—what, realistically, could they do if she just hunkered down in that compound and waited them out? Sure, he could find explosives, but once they got in they were fifteen people, if you counted Marrec, who didn’t even have any powers. Brian’s were gone, and his and Drew’s powers, or Brina’s or Tammy’s wouldn’t be useful in a fight. They were up against powers that Morgan thought were very useful in a fight. Powers that had been augmented. His brain cycled in the same desperate round.
The family had dispersed long ago. Kemble and Dev were burning the midnight oil in the office wing, looking for records of the building of Morgan’s compound. Kemble was working himself to death over this whole thing. But no one told him not to do it. They were all so on edge the whole house seemed ready to explode with frustration. Drew was in bed, thank God.
He was so worried about her. She wasn’t saying anything about her visions anymore. He dreaded asking. He didn’t want to put her through any more pain. And maybe he didn’t want to know. It wouldn’t be good news. His destiny was connected to the Tremaine family now, no matter the outcome, through Drew, but also because he believed in them. They were good people, trying to do what they could to move the world forward to its best incarnation. He’d had no hesitation in giving them the resources of Redmond Enterprises to help them do it. They’d make more of it than he ever would. Every Tremaine had a cause they worked for and the family put the resources of Tremaine Enterprises behind their projects. Only Greta and Lan hadn’t chosen their roles yet. There didn’t seem a point until after the Pentacle formed.
He got up. His body was stiff. He was getting to be an old man now. Forty-eight. He’d been with Drew now for ten years. She was thirty-eight. They apparently weren’t destined for children, and while he regretted that he’d never see a baby girl with Drew’s silver eyes, he didn’t regret Drew. He’d give up children in a minute to have her, happy and whole, to love. Unfortunately, she couldn’t let it go. He’d seen the regret growing in her, year by year, as they failed to conceive. Maybe Dr. Tanet could arrange for him to be tested. He hadn’t had children with Alice either. Now, it looked like it wouldn’t matter anyway.
He put out the stub of his cigar carefully in an ashtray they left on a side table in silent acknowledgement of his proclivity for the occasional cigar and Scotch on the terrace, took the empty cut glass tumbler, and headed for the channel of light flowing from the French doors to the kitchen and breakfast room.
Brina sat at the table alone with cards spread out over the table. She glanced up as he opened the door.
“Good to see you back at the Tarot,” he said, gruffly.
“Hello, Michael.” She glanced down at the array of cards. “I’ve been away too long.” She gestured to a decanter on the bar between the kitchen and the breakfast area. “If you’re going to pour another Scotch, pour me one too.”
Michael turned and raised his eyebrows. Brina wasn’t usually a Scotch drinker.
“I know what you’re thinking, but these are extraordinary times,” she sniffed. “It took all my courage to throw the cards tonight.”
Brina had an astonishing talent for the Tarot. Not surprising, since Drew proved that it came from Merlin and not Medieval Italy. Brina had lost the will to know the future when Brian was struck down. During those dark days when he’d been in a coma, she couldn’t face the future at all, and even during his long road back, his powers gone, her powers gone… Michael couldn’t blame her. He poured two fingers of Scotch into each tumbler.
“I guess we need all the help we can get.” He set one glass in front of her and took the chair opposite.
“That’s why I had to try.” She sighed, gesturing to the card array.
“What’s the verdict?”
She slumped in the chair and took a sip of the Scotch. Fifteen-year-old Springbank. Good stuff. “Everyone I throw the cards for gets the Tower card and the Death card.”
Michael stopped his glass halfway to his lips. “That’s bad.”
“Well, normally I’d say that those could just signify wrenching change, metaphorical destruction on the way to rebirth—that sort of thing.” Her face was pinched with worry. “But in conjunction with the other cards…”
“What, specifically?” Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought.
“Well, the Two of Pentacles I can understand. To simplify, that one means life at the edge of chaos. That’s certainly true. And the Two of Swords is stalemate. We’ve got that, at least for now. But when you start getting the Fives…the Five of Cups—sadness and regret, and the Five of Swords—defeat by a cunning opponent, that makes the Death card and the Tower card not about rebirth.” She shook her head, impatient with herself, as if she could will the cards to tell them a way out of their predicament.
“What do the cards say about Drew?”
“The usual. Plus the Nine of Swords—Nightmares, anguish.” Brina looked up at Michael. “What isn’t she telling us, Michael?”
He didn’t get a chance to lie to Brina, because at that moment, Drew herself appeared like a wraith in a swirling, floor-length peignoir of ghostly pale green, her face streaked with tears. “Michael,” she cried, throwing herself into his arms.
He held her close as she sobbed. “What, honey?” he murmured, worry clutching his heart. “Have you had new visions about our future?”
“No,” she practically wailed. This was so unlike her. She always projected calm and cool, even if she was in turmoil inside.
“Baby, what then?” he asked holding her away from his chest and examining her face.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I see nothing, nothing but blackness and glowing red.”
Brina was up and coming around the table. She gently took Drew by the shoulders. “Sit down here. Michael is going to give you a nice big slug of his Scotch and that’s going to calm you down. You can’t think when you’re this distraught.”
Together they got her into a chair. She took a deep gulp of Scotch and sat back gasping.
“Now, tell us, baby. Have you lost your powers? Maybe that’s not so bad with how things have been going.”
Drew turned her silver-gray eyes on him. “No,” she said dully. “I don’t think that’s it. I just see…blackness tinged with red any time I try to look for us. Any of us.”
“Maybe Jane…” her mother began. Good thought. Jane’s power was Darkness.
“No, no,” Drew protested. “You don’t understand. It’s the absence of everything, not just of light. It’s dark and red, like Hell. That’s the only future I see now.” She looked up at Michael and then over to her mother. “I think we’re all going to die.”
Michael was stunned. Brina looked the same. “In conjunction with my cards, it…it doesn’t look good,” she whispered. She swallowed hard. “This is the problem with knowing the future, isn’t it, honey?” she asked Drew. “If we tell the others, it will just sap their will to go on. And what if we’re wrong if only we went forward, so we bring destruction on ourselves by giving up?”
“The visions don’t lie, Mother.” Drew said, hopelessness in her eyes.
“But we can’t tell them,” Her mother insisted. “Not unless we have no choice. Agreed?”
Drew nodded.
“Michael?”
He took a breath. “Yeah.”
*
Thomas woke with gray light coming in through the open door at the end of the loft. The air was moist and cool. He’d drawn the blanket around them after the last session of lovemaking, so Tammy could rest in comfort. And there they still were, his body cradling hers, her buttocks tucked in against his loins. He had never felt so right, so sure.
They had done the sex slowly several times last night after the heat of the first exchange. Thomas had found peace for the first time in the wonderful experience of joining with the woman he loved, caressing her, bringing her to orgasm again and again, only then allowing the bliss of being inside her to take him over into an experience that was totally unlike the dreams he’d had where he woke, having shamed himself in his bed. This was no shame. This was the way lovers got as close as it was possible to get to one another, body and soul.
He wasn’t sure they should have copulated so many times when this was her first experience. He was glad her hymen had been only partially intact, but still she must be sore. He nuzzled her head. How he loved her red hair and the very faint freckles across her nose, and her slim, pale body, so different than his, and the soft pillows of her breasts, with their pink nipples that hardened under his tongue. Oh, dear. He mustn’t think like that. How could his penis harden after all that they’d done last night? At least he hadn’t burned them to cinders, and the entire estate along with them. That was good.
Of course, things were still terrible. Tammy’s parents would likely separate them if they realized what he and Tammy had done. If they didn’t just kill him outright. And Morgan still wanted the Tremaines dead. She was going to get a lot of power when the stars aligned, and that wasn’t just a lovely line from Shakespeare. The stars were actually going to align.
At least he couldn’t be used in her ceremony. He wanted nothing to do with her evil. But would that stop her? Was he necessary, or just a way to increase an effect that could still be devastating without him? He didn’t know enough about this ceremony.
Tammy turned sleepily in his arms. “Ummmm,” she said, a faint smile appearing on her lovely pink lips even before she opened her eyes. “I like waking up with you.” She put her arms around his neck. “Preferably a very naked you.” She pushed her hips into his. She must be able to feel his erection, which, though it had flagged as he considered Morgan and her plans, was now eager to reassert itself.
“I do too,” he mumbled, pressing kisses on her forehead. “Like waking up to you naked.”
“I can feel that.” She chuckled. “Poor greedy thing. Should we give it what it thinks it needs?” She reached her hand down between them and stroked his penis like she stroked her dog, Lance. Like a faithful dog, it responded instantly to her touch.
He would like nothing more. But he had to think of Tammy. “I think we should let your body have time to recover,” he said, hoarsely.
“I think I may never recover from you, Thomas Llewellyn,” she whispered, kissing his chin. His unshaven bristles must be scraping her soft lips.
He tried to take her by the shoulders. “But seriously, Tammy…”
But she had dipped her hand between her thighs, and now she stroked the moisture she found there against the underside of his penis. “If you’re sure…” he said, ending in a sharp intake of breath as she clasped him fully and slid her hand down to the base of his penis.
“I think we’re both up to it,” she whispered.
Then she couldn’t whisper because he claimed her mouth. The rush of desire flooded his body. He wanted her. And he could feel she wanted him too. What could be more fulfilling?
She pushed him to his back and straddled him. Outlined against the dawn outside their loft the soft curves of her body screamed to him.
“Now,” she panted, “I want to try some things I read about in romance novels. Let’s see if those authors knew anything.”
“Yes,” Thomas said. “Do that.” Taking advice had worked out well so far. He was indebted to Michael in a way he could probably never repay.
“So here’s the deal, Thomas. I’m going to run the show here,” she panted. “And you’re going to lay back and enjoy.”
“But what about you, Tammy? Won’t you enjoy?” He couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice. Maybe he hadn’t been doing something right.
“Oh, yeah. I’ll enjoy. But it has not escaped my notice, guy, that you waited for me before you allowed yourself to come. And I thank you. You were great. But now, I want to pay attention to you. Just to you.”
It was hard to hear her because she was running her hands over his pectoral muscles and thumbing his nipples while she talked. He wanted to squirm in delight and/or anguish, he wasn’t sure which the feeling was so intense.
“So I want you to take direction from me, now, okay?”
He would agree to cut off his right testicle about now. “Yes.”
“So clasp your hands behind your neck, and don’t move. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” He did it.
“Oooh. I like how that makes your biceps bulge. So nice.” She ran her hands over the muscles in question, and he couldn’t help but jerk a little in response. “Now,” she whispered, running her hands down over his chest to his abdomen. “I’m going to control the pace here.” She raised up on her knees and leaned over to brace herself with one hand on his chest while the other pulled up his penis from his belly and placed its tip at her opening. Then she slowly slid down on it. He tried to breathe. It wasn’t the kiln in his center trying to push open the door to flames. No, Tammy took his breath away with the satisfying feeling of being plunged inside her.
Slowly she raised herself. “I thought I’d hardly be able to fit you inside me last night. But that isn’t a problem at all. You just have to go slowly. Which is nice anyway.” She slid off his penis, then placed it at her entrance and slowly settled again. She raised her arms to scoop her hair off her breasts and twist it to her back. That raised her breasts. Which made Thomas harder, though he thought it was impossible. She pressed against his groin again, pubic bone to pubic bone. His testicles brushed her buttocks.
“So I’m going to go slowly,” Tammy continued, inexorably, as she lifted. “And I don’t want you to come until I say.”
That’s what she called having an orgasm. Coming. That was nice. Because that’s what it felt like. It felt like something approaching from far away, getting closer and bigger and more intense. And then it came. He nodded at her. He’d wait until hell froze over to ejaculate if Tammy wanted that. Tammy touched her fingers to her mouth and lowered them to the lovely red thatch of hair between her thighs. Thomas felt his eyes get big. Was she…?
She was. She was touching her clitoris. He wanted to be the one to touch her. Yet he couldn’t deny that it was wonderful to see her do it. Lazily, her hand circled as she raised and lowered herself on his penis. She must have strong thighs, perhaps from riding horses. He thanked the gods that Tammy liked to ride horses. He found his loins and abdomen tensing to lift off the blanket and meet her as she descended. She hadn’t told him to do that, but she didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, she was making little sounds now. Actually, he was as well. Small grunts escaped him. Still she kept up her slow pace. Thomas thought he would burst.
Oh, no. He was in danger of ejaculating before she could give him instructions to do so. And she had begun to move faster, both her hand and her hips. He was in trouble here. He began to recite mentally the section of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History on methods of gold mining.
She interrupted his train of thought with more instructions. She lowered herself to just above his loins and whispered, “Now you thrust,” in a breathless pant.
He needed no further instruction. He pistoned his hips upward and thrust inside her, casting slow and excruciating pleasure to the side in favor of driving her wild. She kept up the circling of her hand and emitted cries of pleasure. He knew that with just a few moments more he could drive her over the edge to her pleasure again.
But then she surprised him. “Come for me, Thomas.”
It was as if she had turned on one of the faucets that had fascinated him so since he came from the monastery. His body responded instantly to her command. He buried himself in her as his fluid jetted in flaming bursts. His senses contracted and then exploded with his semen, and after long moments, as his senses returned, he felt her contract around his penis as her cries spiraled up into a shriek.
She collapsed on top of him, trying to breathe as she laughed. “Well, that was fun,” she managed.
“These romance novels know what they are talking about,” he agreed. “Very…fun.”
She giggled again. “That’s just the beginning.”
“Are there other things to try?”
“Oh, you have no idea. Why, we haven’t even tried oral sex.”
“Yes we have,” he protested. “You seemed to like it very much.”
“I did,” she said softly, running her hands through his hair. “I meant my mouth on you.” Then she giggled. “Don’t look so shocked. I hear it’s pretty nice.”
“I think it would be more than just pretty nice,” he said eagerly. “In a few minutes I am sure we could try it.”
She grinned and kissed him, a long, lingering kiss that left him aching in his heart. He felt fuller than he had ever been. “Sorry, guy. I think we’ll have to take a rain check. We should get in and see how the family is doing on finding Morgan’s lair.”
He nodded reluctantly, the vision of Tammy kneeling between his spread thighs kissing his penis fading only slowly. “You are right, Tammy Tremaine. But I hope we get a chance soon to continue our exploration.”
“Me too.” And her grin was so full of life and mischief that he wanted to hold her close and never leave the loft.
Instead, he reached for his jeans.